Wood as an auxiliary energy source

Heineken

Good tips, Gideon.

Also:

Wear safety glasses and safety boots when splitting. And keep those legs SPREAD.

Extend the wrists (sort of angle them backward; it's hard to describe) when the maul is coming down so that the head hits the top of the log squarely, not at an angle. Significantly increases the effectiveness of the stroke. This is a great little trick I taught myself.

If you have to use a wedge, use the sort that is twisted (kind of like a screw), not straight. Much more powerful. (I dislike wedges, but every now and then they're worth the bother.)

When you're cutting up a tree, bear in mind that you will be splitting the pieces, so make your cuts cleverly so that the knots will least interfere with the splitting. E.g., put a large knot at the end of a piece, not in the middle. Cut branch junctions into sections short enough to split or small enough not to need splitting.

Anyone else got any other tips or advice on splitting?

Gideon · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Aug 29, 2006 Posts: 1142

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Fredrik

Pops

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Heineken

White oak splits fairly easily if it's not green and if you've cut out the big branch junctions. I don't have much trouble with it. Red oak splits easier, but white oak burns and coals significantly better.

Beech---now there's a nightmare for splitting. But what a beautiful, clean-burning firewood it makes.

Red maple is also very nice, as you say, Gideon.

Yellow-poplar (like pine) is great for starting a fire or goosing it up. It's also useful when you need some heat, but not a lot of heat.

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Heineken

Elm is certainly horrible. It doesn't grow here, but I once had the miserable experience of splitting some Chinese elm. Also, it burns badly---slow and smoky.

It seems to me that seasoned wood would be more brittle than green wood and therefore split more easily. Maybe it depends on the species.

I'll sadly resort to a power splitter when I can no longer do it by hand, a time hopefully still far off.

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kaktus

I visited my sister's afew weeks ago. they have bought an old house and had just thrown out the oil burner in the basement and replaced it with a wood burner with a big water tank to store the warmth. from there water is heated that circulates in the floors of the house and gives a very nice climate. also the tap water is heated by the same stove.
it was a really brilliant set up.

also they get their wood of their 40000 sq meter land...

Heineken

I split with a 6-pound maul. I also have an 8-pound maul, but it's just too heavy to wield efficiently.

I have a beautiful ax someone gave me once, but it's probably my most useless tool . . . for now, anyway.

benzoil

This fall I will be gutting and finishing the old summer kitchen on my farmhouse. Since it was the summer kitchen it has zero heat, but a nice chimney in good condition. The chimney is set up for a wood stove, but I don't have one.

Before I spend hours doing research on the net, does anyone have any good/bad things to look for? Auction season is starting around here and I might pick a used one up if I find one that looks good.
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